They dropped into a basement that smelled of must and fabrics: cotton and linen and bamboo jumbled together with cardboard and old wood, newspapers and dust and probably some little animals. "What is this place?" Judy asked.
"Just a hidey-hole," Nick said. "But we're not staying. Someone might've seen us go in here."
"Won't they see us leave, too?"
"Not unless they're moles." He was pacing the floor, staring intently down at it. "Nothing against moles. They're fine people. But…ha. Here." He knelt down and tugged at a grate in the floor. After a moment, it came up, exposing a round hole that didn't look wide enough for Nick to fit in it.
"We're going down there?"
He eyed it. "It used to be bigger." He ran a paw down his clothes. "You're going to get dirty, sorry."
Judy couldn't tell whether he was talking to his clothes or to her. "Is that the sewer?"
"Kind of. I mean, yes, technically, but it's safe and it's not that wet. Didn't used to be, anyway." He gave her an apologetic smile. "I'll go first."
She watched as he sat on the edge of the hole, feet dangling into it, and then pushed off. His tail caught and he said, "Ow!" then wriggled to get it into the hole. Arms over his head, the rest of his body followed, and his paws clung to the edges of the hole for another moment, then let go.
A soft thump came from below. Not too far. Nick's voice floated up. "All clear, Carrots. Come on."
Judy shook her head and lowered herself into the hole, holding onto the edges. She grabbed the grate and tried to situate it so it would fall over the hole again when she let go, and then dropped.
A clunk above her told her the grate had covered the exit. She landed about four feet down on solid, damp rock.
"Nice landing," Nick said.
"About twice as long for me as it was for you." Judy looked up at the hole where she could barely make out the grate in the dim light. "How did you know this was here?"
"Now, how much do you really want to know about my past?" Nick asked. "Can you see okay? It's this direction. Keep a paw along the wall and you won't encounter anything too terrible."
Judy reached out and found a metal bar small enough for her paw to close around. A row of them led up to the grate, which explained how people would get up to it. "Why didn't we come down the ladder?" she asked as she set off after Nick. The white tip of his tail waved back and forth, an easy beacon to follow.
"Ladders are for little cubs," he said. "Besides, it was a lot quicker just to drop down than to explain to you that there's a ladder and then have you feel for it and all that. It's not that bad a drop."
"No." She made her way along behind him. The ground wasn't slimy, just damp, and the smell wasn't as bad as she'd feared it would be. There was a whiff of sewage, but mostly it smelled mildewy, moist, and abandoned. "Where are we going?"
"A safe place." They reached an intersection where Nick turned right and continued on.
"Is it not safe down here?"
"A safe and more comfortable place," he amended.
"And what are we going to do after that?"
He didn't answer for several steps. "Figure out a plan. Call Bogo maybe? I don't know."
Judy took her phone out, but there was no signal down here. She slid it back into her pocket. "Bogo will know what to do."
"I hope so." Nick didn't sound as sure.
"Nick…if he doesn't, then who does?"
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe nobody in the ZPD. Maybe it's just up to us."
"That can't be the answer. If we can't trust our chief…"
"Oh, I think we can trust him. I'm just not sure he'll be able to do anything about it. Maybe he can stop Roarey from arresting us, at least. That'd be something."
The stone wall was cool under her fingers. "If we just gave up the case, he'd let us go."
"Maybe." They walked on a little more. At the next intersection, Nick turned left, which meant they had to leave the wall and cross the tunnel to the other side. "Careful," he said. "There's some water on the bottom here."
Judy had already picked out the dim shine on the tunnel floor. "I see it."
They navigated their way across and picked up the wall on the far side. Another grate passed by above them. There had been a few others, all dark enough to open onto basements rather than streets, but this one let in some light. "Do you want to give up the case?" Nick asked.
"No," Judy said immediately. A few steps later, she added, "But I can't think of what else to do."
"Solve it," Nick said, and stopped, tilting his head back to look up. "Here."
Another grate, dark, lay above them. "Looks clear," the fox said, and climbed up a set of handholds in the wall like the others Judy had seen. He pushed the grate up cautiously and stuck his head through, sniffing. "All clear. Need a paw up or can you make it?"
"I can make it." Judy climbed up the handholds as Nick pulled himself through the hole, tail wriggling and then feet disappearing. A paw stuck down through the hole a moment later.
Judy grasped Nick's paw with one of hers, and clung to the edge of the hole with the other. Nick pulled, she pulled, and she came up through the hole into another dark basement.
Like the other, this smelled of fabrics, but unlike the other, mildew and dust dominated; this basement hadn't been visited in some time. She blinked and took out her phone. "Is it safe to put on a light?"
"Here?" Nick fitted the grate back into place. "Should be. There won't be working electricity, so phones are all we've got. Unless…"
As Judy turned on her phone's light, Nick did as well, but he walked over to one corner of the room. Judy stayed by the grate, shining her light around what proved to be a basement with bare metal shelves and a few moldering boxes scattered around the floor. Cloth spilled out of one, but it was tattered and looked to have been extensively scavenged for mouse nests—probably not the walking and talking kind, but you never knew.
A loud creak from the corner yanked her attention over to it. Nick was standing by an open door through which a greyish light filtered down. "Want to go upstairs?" he asked, gesturing with an arm.
"Is it safe?"
"Nobody's been here in years," he said, and looked past her to the boxes. Judy was reminded of the times in the car when they passed the Happytown sign.
She walked over to the door and up the stairs that lay beyond it, emerging into a small, neat office with a wooden desk (that would have fit either her or Nick) and discolored squares on the light green painted wall that showed where pictures had once hung. The dust was so thick on the desk that even in the dim light it was visible.
Nick came up the stairs behind her and moved to the fox-sized door, opening it a crack and poking his head through. "Seems pretty safe," he said, "but let's stay back here unless you mind the dust."
He set about cleaning off the desk, while Judy tiptoed to the door and peered through. The room beyond had been a store at one time; there were metal racks that had once hung clothing—medium mammal sized clothing—and there was a large flat table bolted to the floor. The large glass windows in front had been covered with paper so old it had turned brown, and the tape holding it up showed in browner spots as the light shone through it.
Nick sneezed. Judy retreated into the little office, covering her nose at the cloud of dust the fox had raised. "Sorry about that," he said. "It was thicker than it looked."
The desk looked somewhat cleaner, though swirls of dust here and there provided a history of Nick's attempts to clean it. He climbed up on it anyway, sitting cross-legged with his back to the wall, and left room for Judy.
She wiped away a little more of the dust and hopped up beside him, scrolling through her phone for Chief Bogo's number. "What is this place, anyway?"
He didn't say anything. Judy looked up from her phone to see Nick with his paws on his knees, looking down, ears flat. "Nick?"
"It was…" He took a deep breath. "My dad's store."
Nick often talked about his mom, who'd raised him mostly herself, from what Judy understood, but had only mentioned his dad a couple times. "What happened to it?" she asked softly.
"What does it look like?"
"I mean…" She didn't know how else to ask the question.
"I know what you mean, Carrots. Sorry. You remember about thirty years ago…nah, you probably don't, actually. There was a drought, and food got expensive, and so," he waved his paw. "One thing led to another and people stopped buying things. I was…" He sighed. "Five? Something like that."
"I know how old you were thirty years ago," Judy said teasingly. "I've seen your HR file."
Nick gave her an amused scowl. "Hmph. Anyway, my dad couldn't pay his workers anymore, so he had to fire them, and then he couldn't pay his rent anymore, and he got a month behind, two months, three months. So…" He waved his paw around. "He sold everything people would take to pay off his debts, and then he disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
Nick nodded. "Mom said he was ashamed he couldn't provide for his family. She always told me that it wasn't that he didn't love us."
Judy reached out for Nick's paw and he didn't hold hers back, but he didn't pull away either. "I'm sorry."
"He was just training me to work in the store. I used to go with him to get fabric through those sewers. Never thought it would come in useful again."
"I'm glad you did." Judy thought back. "Wait, I remember Mom and Dad talking about that drought. They got money from the government to tide them over. Dad always said that's why they still pay their taxes."
"Carrots. You know how it goes in Happytown."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean…sure, some of the businesses got money. The ones whose owners know city councilors, the ones who are run by large mammals, the ones in the places where the rich people want to shop. My dad made clothes for foxes and raccoons and possums, for badgers and weasels and bobcats. The camels and lions and gazelles don't care about what we wear."
"They can't not give him money because he's a fox," Judy said. "I'm pretty sure that's illegal. I mean, an elephant in Jumbo's telling you to get lost is one thing, but this is the government."
"And what case are we investigating?" Nick asked gently.
"But…that's not fair."
"No. 'Fair' is for the people who make the rules. Oh, they dress it up pretty, you know. They say, 'the applications are available to everyone,' they say, 'everyone has the same chance of getting a loan,' they say, 'we care about all of Sahara Square.' But then when the loans are given out they say, 'this business had better credit,' and 'this business filled out the application correctly,' and 'if you'd been better educated you could've prepared for this.' Things like that. Making out like it was his fault. And," he held up a paw, "I know, you might say, 'what if it was his fault?' My dad wasn't a saint—he ran out on his family, after all."
"I wasn't going to say that," Judy said.
"You could. I would. But," Nick waved his paw around. "Walk up and down this block and you'd see failed businesses. I remember walking down to the convenience store to get a candy bar, going to the parts store and looking at the electronics, getting my fur trimmed at the groomer around the corner. My dad was one of the last ones on the block to stay open. All the other shops folded. None of them came back. There's stores there now, different people, different shops. So were all those people bad at business? Or were they just the wrong kind of people in the wrong part of town?"
"I get it," she said. "I talked to Mr. Stripe, remember? I believe you." Chief Bogo's number glowed on her phone, but at the moment she didn't want to talk to him. What could he do to reverse this crime, thirty years old, that had torn Nick's family apart and who knew how many others? This crime that was still happening everywhere around her in this neighborhood?
"And this is just the same thing." Nick swished his tail along the desk. "It's rich people taking money from poor people because they can. This isn't the only thing, I'm sure, it's just the one we're seeing."
"And we can do something about it." Judy gestured to her phone. "We can make sure the people stealing the money get caught and go to jail. It'll provide an example for people who try this kind of thing again."
"Will it? People have been doing this for years, decades. Once in a while someone gets really outrageous and then they get reprimanded, maybe they get arrested. And the only lesson people learn is that they can't be outrageous about it."
"Can't someone elect a fox or a raccoon or a possum to be a councilor?" Judy asked. "Someone who can speak for the people? That's what we do in Bunnyburrow. Each of the families has a representative on the council."
"Ha. We did once or twice. There was a raccoon, a bunch of years ago, tried to run for council, but not even all of Happytown voted for him. Some people said he was sucking up to the big businesses and would betray us and they voted for the…hippo, I think it was, or maybe elephant, honestly who cares, whoever had been representing us in the past. He was familiar and people didn't want change."
"Someone should try again," Judy said. "What about…" She tried to think of the people she'd met over the last few days. "Mr. Stripe? He seems like he wants to look out for Happytown."
Nick barked a laugh. "Stripe is a community activist and the last thing in the world he wants is to have to deal with politics. He just wants to yell at politicians and hope that someone listens. If he has to go to council meetings then he has to follow all their dumb rules."
Judy sighed. "There has to be someone."
"There is, once in a while, but honestly even if a fox or a raccoon gets elected, that's only one councilor on a council of twelve. What are they gonna do? Yell a lot, get ignored, get frustrated. It's going to take a lot more than one election to change a whole system that's been in place for so long."
"But you've got to start somewhere." She held up her phone again. "Maybe this is the thing that starts it. We can get Councilor Sand arrested and show the people of Happytown that the ZPD is going to stand up for them."
Nick laughed again, longer this time, long enough that Judy shoved him. "What?"
"Oh, Carrots. You saw Roarey, right? And his buddies?"
"Sure, but…" She sagged back against the wall. "Maybe the reason Captain Whitehorn wanted us on the case was so that we'd catch Roarey."
"If she wanted that, she'd arrest him herself. She for sure has all the evidence she needs. And didn't you hear her on the phone with Sand? She's part of this. She's just smart enough not to get her paws dirty." Nick held his paws out in front of him and wriggled his fingers. "What do rhinos have? Hooves? Hands?"
"But not all the ZPD are like that."
Nick turned a sad smile on her. "Sure, in Precinct One. What's the poorest neighborhood we have to work with?"
"Well, there's Crevasse in Tundratown. That's pretty poor."
He nodded. "That's also around where Mr. Big operates. He takes care of Crevasse just like he takes care of Tundratown. He's a smart guy and he thinks Tundratown reflects on him so even though he ices people sometimes, he'd much rather have everyone think of him as the unofficial boss who makes their lives better. We don't have to do a whole lot there except stay out of his way."
"What about Magnolia North?"
Nick nodded. "Technically that's Precinct Two, though. They have a lot of the same issues though. I know a few of the sloths up there and they're always complaining about it."
"Fine," Judy said. "Then how about we arrest Sand because it's the right thing to do?"
"On what evidence?"
"Freddy's testimony. Jenny Scar…" Judy's voice trailed off as she remembered the ZPD taking Jenny away.
"Exactly," Nick said.
They sat in silence for a short time. Judy tried to stave off the feelings of hopelessness that threatened to overwhelm her, but it was hard when Nick kept shooting down all her ideas. If they couldn't arrest Sand, then what could they do? If they tried to get Freddy to testify, likely the police would bring out a threatened Jenny Scar to testify that Freddy was the thief and he'd get arrested, and that would be the end of it. Nobody would believe the thief's story about where he'd dropped the money or who had asked him to take it.
At least they could call Bogo, and he could send a car to get them, and they could wait until this all blew over and go back to their jobs. She stared down at her phone, but didn't reach for the Call button. "Tell me something," she said to Nick.
"Sure."
"If the police are always on the side of the rich and powerful…"
"They are."
"They why did you join them?"
"Hah." He grinned. "Wouldn't you take the chance to join the rich and powerful?"
"I'm serious, Nick." She stared levelly until his grin faded. "If you don't think the police can solve any of the world's real problems, why did you join them?"
"I didn't join them, Carrots," he said. "I joined you."
"Okay, but…" She folded her ears back, warm. "I'm almost as new as you. I didn't even know a lot of this stuff you're telling me."
"I know." He leaned back, looking straight ahead. "I mean that when I was working with you on the Bellweather thing, that was the first time I felt like I was making a difference. So I thought, maybe there are things a fox and a bunny can do to change the world, and maybe we can do them as police." He shrugged. "Maybe we can't. But you made me believe it's worth the trouble to try."
Judy wiped her eyes. "That's not fair."
"What?"
She scooted over to lean against him. "Being all nice like that after you just lectured me on how everything is hopeless."
He put an arm around her shoulders. "Sorry, Carrots. I shouldn't lecture you or presume I know better. I'll try not to do that anymore."
"Hah." She gave a short laugh. "Promise me something you can actually do, Blueberries."
"Fair enough. I'm sorry—again—about lying to Simon. About us, I mean, not any of the other things I lied to him about."
"It wasn't a great thing to do," Judy said, "but I know you meant well. And hey, what other lies?"
Nick got very engaged in grooming the dust out of his tail. "Man, this place hasn't been cleaned in a while."
"Nick!"
"I mean, I got Finnick to pretend to be a reporter, remember?"
"Oh yeah." She elbowed him. "Nothing else I don't know about?"
"Probably some small ones but nothing big. I was just angry at him about the bank interview, him asking about that case and then acting all smug when Tobias called back about it."
"But that did give us a little bit of a lead," Judy said.
"Too bad it didn't go anywhere."
After another moment, Nick let his tail drop back to the desk and said, "I guess you should call Bogo now. Maybe he can send a car."
"Wait," Judy said.
"Hm?" Nick perked his ears.
"The case. Nick, the case. If Tobias remembers Jenny bringing it in, then maybe someone remembers the money being deposited! You know the manager—can you ask him?"
He stared at her, thinking, and then a grin spread slowly over his muzzle. "I can, and we might not have to rely on someone remembering."
"What do you mean?"
"Well," Nick said, "the banks, like the streets, have security footage."
"I thought about the street cams," Judy said, "but they only keep their footage for 24 hours."
"Whereas the bank…" Nick held up seven fingers. "Keeps theirs for at least a week."
"A week!" Judy jumped off the desk. "Nick, they'd still have it."
"For another day or two." He grimaced. "But how are we going to get there?"
She held up her phone. "Call Bogo?"
"Maybe." Nick rubbed his chin. "He'd get us out of here, but would he let us go to the bank, especially with me suspended?"
"I mean…" Judy looked down at her phone. "He might? If we told him we needed to gather evidence for the case?"
"But then we'd have to get a warrant. And someone might be watching the system. Roarey and his guys could get there before we had the paperwork processed."
"Blueberries," Judy said, "we've got to do this by the book."
"We can ask to see the security footage," Nick said, "and if Atherton lets us—which she will—then we can get a warrant to use it as evidence after we and Atherton have all seen it and can testify to its existence already."
She turned that over in her head, looking for any problems with it. "If you're sure she'll let you…maybe you should call him."
"I'm sure of it," Nick said. "I don't want to call and give her time to think about it too much and maybe call someone else."
"It doesn't sound like you're really that sure," Judy said.
"I'm sure she'll help us." Nick slid down off the desk. "I'm not sure that she wouldn't try to figure out some other angle on it before we get there if we give her time to. She's a friend, not a trusted associate."
She paced back and forth. "It's a long way back there. Can we make it through the sewers?"
"I don't know how to get closer than the town hall, which is only a few blocks away but is also in the middle of where a bunch of Precinct Four cops are probably looking for us." Nick swept his tail back and forth. "You think Simon could help?"
"We could ask him to get us more clothes so we could go incognito."
"How many foxes are walking around Zootopia with bunnies?"
She inclined her head. "Okay, do I need to go with you?"
"You do, because I'm suspended and you need to witness the footage too."
Judy rubbed her foot through dust on the floor, which made her nose twitch and then made her sneeze. "So we can't go with Simon and we can't go with Bogo…"
"What if Simon rented a car?"
Judy laughed out loud. "He's been in Zootopia for four days and you want him to drive? You know how long it took me to learn to drive?"
Nick pretended to check his watch. "And counting, yes."
"Quiet."
"Our other option I guess would be to go to the end of the block, catch a bus to Green and Poplar, and switch there for the bus that takes us to the bank."
"If we do that we might as well just take the sewers." Judy pondered, and then her ears perked straight up. "I've got an idea."
She flipped through numbers on her phone, found what she was looking for, and dialed. "Hello?" she said, doing her best to talk like the raccoon who'd accused her of denting her car a few days ago. "I'm Clara Belle and I was driving in Tundratown just now when a bunny in a ZPD uniform and a fox in a," she looked at Nick, "green shirt just took my car. They said they needed to get to Outback Island in a hurry and that I should call the ZPD to find out where my car is and I just wanted to know if this is regular? It doesn't seem regular. Are you sure it's regular?"
Nick's eyebrows rose the more she talked and then he stifled giggles as she kept going. "Yes, I'll hold," Judy said.
"Brilliant," he whispered, and gave a thumbs up.
"Yes, who is this?" she asked when the phone picked up again. "Lieutenant Roarey? Are you the one who gets back cars that have been commandeered? Well, my car was taken by a bunny in a ZPD uniform and a fox in a green shirt and I just don't think that's regular. Is it regular?"
She repeated her story while Lieutenant Roarey gave her his assurances that the car would be found. He asked for the make and model and license number and Judy made up a number to go with the most common make and model of car she could think of.
"Well," she said after she hung up, "that should keep them running in the wrong direction for a while."
Nick bowed. "I have no more to teach you." Judy grinned, and he amended, "except maybe about driving."
"Ugh." She swatted at his tail, but didn't lose her grin. It was nice to show Nick that he wasn't the only clever one. "Shall we go to the bank?"
They went back through the sewer passages, where Nick insisted on going first to make sure the coast was clear. "I'm already suspended," he said, "but you haven't been yet."
"Thanks," Judy said, watching from the shadow of the basement window as Nick pulled himself through, brushed his clothes off, and looked in both directions. He waved her up and helped her through the window.
"It's a shortish walk to the bank through the plaza, but if we take some of the side streets we might avoid being seen."
Judy eyed the plaza, which was less crowded now that lunch hour was over. "All right," she said. "Let's go."
It was difficult to appear nonchalant at the same time as you were actively looking around the area to make sure there weren't any ZPD officers around. Judy and Nick did the best they could, and the one time they spotted an officer and ducked into the nearest store (a rug gallery) to watch her through a window, the officer strolled away without having seen them.
Brushing off the sales ibex who wanted to show them his carpets, they hurried back out and made it to the bank with no further incident.
There, Nick was a little more worried because there were security officers all around, but nobody stopped him as he went back to see the manager, and a few minutes later they were standing with the skunk in a back office watching their security officer, an elephant, rewind footage.
"The deposit was made two days ago," Nick said.
Atherton, the skunk, was scrolling through her phone. "I remember it. We don't get a lot of deposits that size and I had to authorize it. It never occurred to me that it was the same fifty thousand we'd just taken out of the vault a few days before. Here we are. Jasper, look around three-twenty pm."
The elephant scrolled the footage on both the large and medium screens while Nick and Judy watched intently. "There," Atherton said, pointing.
An ibex in a jacket and jeans pushed a bag over the counter. It wasn't Jenny Scar's case; it was smaller and nicer, a leather shoulder bag. "It's the same money," Judy said. "It has to be."
"That's the treasurer from the school, right?" Nick asked.
"That is indeed Mrs. Plaine," Atherton said. "She does business here regularly."
"Does she often deposit large piles of cash?" Judy asked.
"No, not usually."
"I don't suppose you still have that cash in a place where you could match it to the cash that was taken out by Jenny Scar?"
Atherton thought about that. "It is possible," she said. "We could find the serial numbers of the cash withdrawal, because that had to be specially sent over by the central bank, but this cash might not even be in the building anymore. We'd have to find it where it is and then match the serial numbers to that withdrawal."
"Even that wouldn't prove anything," Nick said, "only that whoever stole it deposited it back, and it might've been Plaine or it might not have. We can't see the serial numbers on that specific money," he pointed to where the image on the monitor was frozen. "Even if…" He climbed up onto the desk to look at the same image on the large monitor. "No, it's fuzzy here too. But…hang on." He stared at the image. "Back it up."
"What?" Judy asked.
"You see that person outside the window there?" He pointed, and Judy looked on her monitor.
"That camel?"
"That's Horatio Sand. I stared at his portrait for five minutes, I should know."
Jasper fiddled with controls and everyone in the video froze. Then, slowly, the bank teller put the cash back onto the counter, and the ibex returned it to her bag. She backed up to the line, waited for a moment, and then backed out the door. All the while Horatio Sand paced forth and back outside the bank.
And then the ibex backed out of the door and moved through the exterior windows and gave the bag of cash to Horatio Sand. "There!" Judy said. "Stop! Freeze it!"
The elephant wasn't quite quick enough, but he caught the tape and played it forward. Judy held up her phone, taking video for her own record as on the screen, a little blurry but unmistakable, Horatio Sand gave a bag of fifty thousand dollars in cash to the treasurer of the Serengeti School.
"I'm going to have to ask you to keep this tape as ZPD evidence." Judy put her phone away. Nick's arms were folded but his tail wagged fast back and forth.
They called Chief Bogo and had him send a car and an officer who could take the security footage in evidence. While they waited, they watched it again and discussed how solid the evidence was. The only problem was that they couldn't prove that the cash was from Freddie's case, but Judy thought it was enough evidence to arrest him, and from there they would be able to call enough witnesses to get him.
"It'll work," Nick assured her. "It has to. We've got witnesses and he can't provide any other explanation for where that fifty thousand came from. Hey, Atherton?"
The skunk had opted to wait with them. "What?"
"Can you look at the bank accounts of both the Sands and just confirm that neither of them took out fifty thousand dollars? In case they try to use that as an excuse."
"I can't show you their records without a warrant." The skunk slid over to her computer. "Buuuut, I can look at them and tell you that…" She scanned the screen, tapped a few more keys. "Neither of them has withdrawn anything like that amount recently."
"Why would they?" Judy said. "If they wanted to transfer it to the school, they'd just do that through the bank."
"Right." Nick rubbed his muzzle. "I guess…that's as good as we can ask for."
When the car arrived, to their surprise, not only did Sergeant Clawson, a large tiger, get out, but Chief Bogo himself stepped out of the other side of the car. "Just had to see what all the fuss was about," he said to Nick and Judy's gaping jaws, "and find out why my suspended officer is here in Sahara Square apparently working on a case."
"Not working, sir." Nick recovered first. "I'm acting as a civilian assist to an officer who requested my help."
"Hmmmmm." Bogo turned to Judy. "You requested his help?"
"Actually, sir…" She paused. "The reporter we were working with called him, but he's been invaluable. Nobody knows Happytown like Nick does."
The water buffalo grumbled again but turned to the bank manager. "And you've cooperated with the investigation?"
"Yes, sir," Atherton said. "We at First Bank are always happy to help the ZPD."
Clawson was busily working with Jasper to get the security footage. "Good," Bogo said. "I was also hoping, Hopps, that you could explain to me what you've learned on this case. Prior to going and filling out the report, of course."
Judy and Nick exchanged glances. "Sure," Judy said. "I'd be happy to give you the rundown on the case."
"It's pretty complicated, Chief," Nick said. "Maybe you should have a cup of coffee before we go."
"Hmph." Bogo snorted at Nick. "In the car, you two."
In the spacious back seat of the large mammal-sized car, Judy recounted the whole story, with Nick chiming in to provide color commentary every now and then, always getting Bogo right up to the point of telling him to shut up and then shutting up before the buffalo could say it.
When Judy talked about Lieutenant Roarey, though, the mood in the car darkened, and even Nick stayed quiet. "That's very serious," Bogo said. "Are you sure about this?"
"Positive." Judy folded her paws into her lap. "I don't like it either. You know I've always believed in the ZPD. But I can't turn away when I see something like this either."
"Mmm." Bogo exhaled and leaned back in the car seat. Clawson, driving, didn't say anything. "I won't say it's a complete surprise. I know things at Precinct Four aren't always by the book. I didn't think it had gone that far."
"We think—" Nick broke in and then stopped himself. "Do you think Captain Whitehorn knows about it?"
They drove on, and after a few moments Chief Bogo said, "I'll put it this way. Captain Whitehorn would have to be a bad captain to not know."
There were a few more silent moments, and then just as Judy was about to speak, Bogo said, "But I also think that Captain Whitehorn would have to be stupid to allow herself to be implicated."
"As long as we can get Roarey," Nick said, "I'll be happy. His breath was horrible."
"With your testimony, we might be able to," Bogo said. "But from your story, it sounds like there's one person whose testimony is critical."
Judy nodded. "Jenny."
"Right. If you can convince her to testify then I think we'll have a case. But really, beyond that, it's out of our hands."
"We were getting close." Nick looked at Judy.
"Actually," Judy said, "I do have an idea about that."
With Chief Bogo's help and two escorts from Precinct One, they went back to Precinct Four and marched past a startled Rainy to Captain Whitehorn's office. The rhino received them with equanimity, sitting back in her chair and clasping her huge hands together over her stomach. "Chief Bogo," she said.
"Hello, Manda," Bogo said. "Forgive the intrusion, but one of our officers has a question about a person that she maintains is in your custody."
"Which person is this?"
Judy stepped forward. "Jenny Scar." Whitehorn drew a breath to respond, and Judy said, "We saw your officers apprehend her on the street and we called her office and home and nobody's seen her since then."
"I don't know anything about it, but I'll have Lieutenant Tusker take you down to the holding cells, and if she's there, you can talk to her."
"No need," Nick said.
Whitehorn turned to him, eyebrows raised. "I thought you came here to talk to her."
He tapped his nose. "We walked by Lieutenant Roarey's office on the way here, and I caught a familiar scent in the hall. Jenny Scar isn't in a holding cell; she's in Lieutenant Roarey's office."
Both Bogo and Whitehorn stared at him, but Judy kept her eyes on the rhino. "If Nick says she's there, you can trust him. His nose doesn't lie."
Whitehorn opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again. Bogo glanced from Nick to Whitehorn and then said, "His mouth's been known to, yeah, but not about important things."
"Thanks, Chief," Nick said. "Remind me to call you as a character witness sometime."
"Remind me not to answer that call," Bogo rumbled. "Manda, shall we?"
"If Lieutenant Roarey is questioning her about an investigation—"
"She's an important witness in our investigation," Judy said.
"Also," Nick added, "based on our experience, Roarey may be threatening her to not testify, so…better get in there sooner than later."
Whitehorn didn't look as shocked at that as Judy'd expected she would. "Let me just—" She reached for her phone and then drew her hand back and stood. "No, let's just go in there."
But when they knocked on Roarey's office door, there was no answer. Whitehorn opened the door, and the four of them trooped in to find Jenny Scar sitting alone in a chair, her paws together in her lap.
She looked up at them and her ears went back. "Oh no," she said. "He told me I wouldn't be in trouble."
"You're not." Judy took a step forward.
"I'm not supposed to talk to you anymore," the coyote said, and then nodded to Nick. "Him either."
"Lieutenant Roarey told you that?" Captain Whitehorn asked.
Jenny nodded. "I just want to go home to my family."
"There's no reason you can't." Captain Whitehorn walked over to put a large hand on the coyote's smaller shoulder. "Did he explain why you were being detained here?"
"He said…" Jenny sat up straighter. "He said that I'd put some officers in jeopardy because I was talking to those two. That there were charges of police endangerment but he'd be willing not to charge me if I'd agree to not talk to them anymore."
"That," Chief Bogo said into the silence, "sounds like abuse of power to me."
They talked to Jenny for a good fifteen minutes, during which Captain Whitehorn and Chief Bogo convinced her that there were no "police endangerment" charges against her and took down her testimony about what Roarey had said to her, which would be enough to get him suspended at least.
She still didn't want to talk about the other case, and kept saying that her job was really important to her. After several minutes of going around and around on this, Judy asked if she and Nick could talk to Jenny alone. So the two officers left, and Judy sat across from the coyote.
"I get that you don't want to lose your job," Judy said. "But your boss is doing some bad things. And I know you care about the kids at the Sunshine school. So if you testify, we'll be able to get them their money."
"I know," Jenny whispered. "But…what would I do?"
"Well," Nick said, "you know a lot of the politicians and the people that Councilor Sand worked with. Maybe you could work to get money for the Sunshine school. You could take a percentage of the donations to pay your salary? It wouldn't be as much as you're making now, I guess, but it would still be something."
Judy spoke up softly. "And think of all the cubs whose lives you'd be changing. You could see the good directly, right there, going to the people who need it."
Jenny looked between the two of them. "You really think so?"
Judy sighed. "Roarey is probably getting suspended, hopefully fired. We have enough evidence to make things very difficult for Councilor Sand even without you, but with your help it'll be a lot cleaner. What I'm saying is that you might not have a job in a month or two anyway, and unfortunately we're going to have to talk about your involvement in the case, which Freddy is going to testify to, so…the real question is what kind of example you want to set for your daughter?"
Jenny's eyes got bright and shiny again and she rubbed at them. "Dammit, that's not fair."
"It's true, though," Nick said. "My dad tried to do everything by the book and failed. My mom taught me to do anything I needed to survive and that led to me being a—well, very successful—street hustler for twenty years."
"Don't brag about that." Judy elbowed him.
"What I'm saying is," Nick went on, "lots of people are going to be talking about this case, and don't you want your daughter to hear about her mommy standing up for people who can't fight for themselves?"
Jenny looked away from them, then exhaled. "You're good cops," she said in a low voice. "I…had stopped believing in those."
"So…?" Judy asked gently.
"I'll make a statement," Jenny said. "And there's other things I can tell you about, too."
An hour later, with Jenny's statement officially recorded, Bogo rode with Judy and Nick back to Precinct One. "I expect a full report on all of this by the end of the day tomorrow," he said. "But for now, you've had a full day, so take the evening off."
"Gee, boss," Nick said, "I can't think of a better way to relax than by doing a mountain of paperwork."
"If this conviction sticks, it'll make even your questionable wit worth putting up with," Bogo said. "When I contacted her about Roarey, Captain Whitehorn told me that she was worried about corruption in her department, and that's why she asked to assign this case to you two." He said it dryly, passing the words along without any hint as to whether he believed them.
"I see," Nick said.
"And why did you let Simon tag along with us this week?" Judy asked.
"Oh, I didn't do that on purpose. It just came up. Orders from the commissioner are that we should do more to get the ZPD a good image in the public eye. This will help with that, too." The buffalo smiled broadly. "Good work, you two."
The commendation should've made Judy deliriously happy, but it left her with only a little warmth as she turned to Nick. "Want to get dinner or—"
"Thought you'd never ask," he said. "And we should invite Simon along."
"We should…" Judy shook her head and rubbed her fingers in her ears. "Did I hear you right? You want to invite Simon?"
"Sure." Nick grinned. "He helped get this case solved. He should know how it turned out."
"I just thought…"
"What, that I'd want an evening alone with you." He smiled down at her. "Aw, Carrots, if you want to date me, you know, we can talk—ow!"
Judy had thrown her notepad at him. "I thought you didn't like Simon."
"I don't." Nick picked up the notepad and gave it back to her. "I mean, he's not a bad guy, but I wouldn't want to live with him. I just figured he's heading back soon and he'd want to know how this went."
"All right. I'll invite him along."
They opted to go back to Judy's favorite restaurant, and after sweet-talking Carlotta for a few minutes, she agreed to seat the three of them. "We got no bugburgers," she said shortly to Nick. "Veg only."
"That's fine," he said. "I was hoping for some carrots to get the orange back in my fur."
She humphed and dropped menus on the table. "So everything worked out?" Simon asked.
"Looks that way," Nick said. "We're going to bring Freddy in tomorrow and get his statement. With Jenny's, that should cinch a conviction for Sand. And her husband."
"And what happened to you two?"
They took it in turns to tell him about the events of the morning. He turned from one to the other, wide-eyed, and when they'd finished he said, "That was good thinking about the bank."
"Lucky it wasn't another day," Nick said, "or the tape might've been wiped."
"So that's it," Judy said. "Is that enough for your story?"
"It sure is." Simon chuckled. "More than enough."
"We'll have to ask to see it before it goes to print," Nick reminded him. "We made a lot of promises to people about what would and wouldn't be included."
"Of course." Simon nodded. "There'll be plenty to write about."
"You going to come back to Zootopia?" Judy asked.
"Maybe for a visit now and then, if that's okay." He grinned and his ears flipped to the side. "It was nice, but…it's a little bit big and crazy for my tastes. Call me provincial, but I like my life in Bunnyburrow."
"You're provincial," Nick said.
"But I can see how much you love Zootopia, Judy, and…honestly it suits you. I'll make sure to put that in the article too."
"Thanks." Judy tried not to beam as much as she wanted to.
Carlotta came back over. "Have you decided?"
Judy nodded. "Is the souffle still available? I hear it's fantastic."